Amelia Jenks Bloomer
Speeches
Temperance V/Against the Great Destroyer - c. June 1853
June 1, 1853
This speech fragment discusses the Independent Order of Good Templars, an international organization formed in Utica, New York, in 1851 whose members did not buy, sell or use alcohol. The fragment may have been part of Bloomer's address to the first state convention of Good Templars, held in Utica in June 1853. Among the various organizations which have been formed for promoting the cause of temperance is that of the Independent Order of Good Templars, and whose members appear here today wearing this regalia. It is fitting that before I […]
Mary Jane Coggeshall
Speeches
The White Cross and Women's Purity - c. 1886
January 1, 1886
In Great Britain in sundry garrison towns there has been in operation for twenty years up to last November, a law known as the "Contagious Diseases Acts," which had made the virtue of English women and girls as legally an article of barter, and sale as the traffic in sugar and coffee. The friends of Social Purity in England in an organization of which, Mrs. Josephine Butler is the inspired leader, -- a noble woman, who, as she sat in her darkened home from which her own lovely daughter had […]
Jane Addams
Speeches
Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements - 1892
January 1, 1892
Addams gave this address at the School of Applied Ethics. The Ethical Culture Societies held a summer school at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1892, to which they invited several people representing the then new Settlement movement, that they might discuss with others the general theme of Philanthropy and Social Progress. I venture to produce here parts of a lecture I delivered in Plymouth, both because I have found it impossible to formulate with the same freshness those early motives and strivings, and because, when published with other papers given that summer, […]
Bertha von Suttner
Speeches
Address to the London Meeting of the International Council of Women - June 27, 1899
June 27, 1899
This address was read by Mrs. M.P. Byles, as Suttner was in The Hague at the time. My Lady President, while in this Congress of the International Council of Women the name "Arbitration" has been chosen as the opening subject of its meetings, another Congress is sitting, as you well know, which has been summoned by a powerful monarch, and where all governments are represented, a Congress whose task it is to conduct this same question – not only as has been done hitherto, and as we might do here, […]
Carrie Chapman Catt
Speeches
Presidential Address to NAWSA - May 30, 1901
May 30, 1901
Following is Catt's address to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, as reported by The Woman's Journal on June 8, 1901. The fifteen months which have elapsed since our last Annual Convention have formed a period of special importance in the history of our movement and in the history of the nation. During those months the old Century has departed, with its record of having achieved more in the progress of civilization than had been accomplished in five hundred years before; and the new Century has come, giving abundant promise […]
Alice Stone Blackwell
categories: Speeches, U.S. Senate Committee/Subcommittee Meeting/Hearing
Statement at a Hearing before the Select Committee on Woman Suffrage - Feb. 18, 1902
February 18, 1902
Mr. Chairman and gentleman of the committee, I wish to submit to you to-day a few remarks, in very brief compass, simply from the standpoint of common sense. I wish to recall to your memory the fact that every step of progress toward improvement in the condition of women has been opposed by exactly the same predictions of disaster as are now made in regard to equal suffrage. When my mother was trying to secure for married women the right to control their own property it was said that it […]
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Speeches
The Humanness of Women - c. 1909-1910
January 1, 1910
Gilman gave this speech several times in New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut from 1909-1910. A woman by the river's brim,A wife and servant is to him­ And she is nothing more. WE HAVE made mistakes, as old as humanity, about the world, and about women. First, as to the world: This we have assumed to be a general battlefield for men to struggle in; a place for free competition; full of innumerable persons whose natural mode of life was to struggle for existence with one another. This is […]
Leonora O’Reilly
Speeches
Peace - June 9, 1915
June 9, 1915
O'Reilly delivered this report from the International Congress of Women, held at The Hague, Holland, on April 28-30, 1915, to the Fifth Biennial Convention of the National Women's Trade Union of America. When on April 1st I received a telegram from our National office saying, "By vote of the National Executive Board you are earnestly urged to represent League at Peace Conference, The Hague. Steamer sails April 13th." I thought some one was playing a practical joke on yours truly. My reply, however, to the call was, as nearly as […]
Jeannette Rankin
Speeches
"Woman Suffrage" - Jan. 10, 1918
January 10, 1918
Mr. Speaker, we are facing today a question of political evolution. International circumstances have forced this question to an issue. Our country is in a state of war. The Nation has had a terrible shock. The result has been a sudden change in our national consciousness. The things we have for years been taking for granted are suddenly assuming a new significance for us. We as a Nation were born in a land of unparalleled resources, of vast acreage of fertile soil, of minerals, of coal, oil, gas, of timber, […]
Mary McLeod Bethune
categories: Commencement/Baccalaureate/Convocation Address, Speeches
"A Philosophy of Education for Negro Girls" - 1920
January 1, 1920
For the past seventy years the Negro has experienced various degrees of freedom. That which was given him in the early years of emancipation was more genuine and perhaps more benign that than which today he must take. For today he must free himself by reason of his ability and by merit, and by whatever trust and confidence may be found in himself. A great deal of this new freedom rests upon the type of education which the Negro woman will receive. Early emancipation did not concern itself with giving […]